Princess Zara

"No; I hardly think that. The nihilists would not be likely to send

more than one at a time on such a dangerous errand."

Morét confessed to me the following day, and I speedily was convinced

that my suppositions concerning him were correct. He had not had the

brutal courage to carry out his orders; and already he had received

several warnings from his compatriots that if another week passed

without his accomplishment of the design, his own life would pay the

forfeit. He was in that room awaiting my arrival when he heard me

approaching with the prince, and had concealed himself behind the

curtain without any definite purpose other than to hear all that he

could.

It is hardly necessary, and there is not space, for me to go into the

details of my subsequent talks with Morét. Suffice it to say that the

information I gleaned in that way, proved of inestimable value to my

work. From it I learned the names of all the leading nihilists of St.

Petersburg and Moscow, their meeting places, their passwords, and

several of their ciphers. Concerning their plans for the future, beyond

those in which he was personally engaged, Morét knew almost nothing;

but he did put me in the way of finding out nearly all that I wished to

know. Nor is it necessary that I should describe my subsequent

interviews with the emperor. My plans were adopted almost without a

correction--and most of those I suggested myself--so that by the time I

had been an inmate of the palace for a week, the reorganization of the

Fraternity of Silence was well under way, and ere a month had passed it

was an established fact.

There was one point upon which Morét stubbornly refused to talk, and

that was concerning the woman who had led him into the difficulty, and

who, he confessed, was the brains and the real head of the society. I

questioned him very closely and so decided in my own mind that she was

prominent at the capital; but at the last he positively refused to

answer any further questions concerning her, saying that he would

rather go to Siberia and have done with it at once, than to betray her.

I desisted, therefore, believing that ultimately he would denounce her

to me without knowing that he had done so, and events proved that I was

right although they also demonstrated that it would have been much

better for all concerned had he trusted me implicitly in the beginning.

Thus, at the end of a month succeeding the night of my ride from the

hotel to the palace with the prince, I was prepared to commence work in

earnest; but it must not be supposed that I had been idle, personally,

during that time.